Thursday, December 14, 2006

Cutting Up Carter

One is the ADL NYT ad which at present I am having trouble uploading so just the text follows (with no graphics) and Ken Stein's elaboration.

The ad read:-

There’s only one honest thing about President Carter’s new book.

The Criticism.

‘Offensive And Wrong’

That’s what senior House Democrat and Civil Rights Leader John Conyers callsPresident Carter’s Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Rep. Conyers says the expresident’s use of apartheid “does not serve the cause of peace” and is “againstthe Jewish people in particular.”

Conyers is not alone.

Leading Democrats like Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi and DNC ChairmanHoward Dean have ignored party ties and denounced Mr. Carter’s screed.

Even the former Executive Director of The Carter Center, Dr. Kenneth W. Stein,dismisses the book as a “one-sided” rant, fraught with “factual errors,”“invented segments” and “glaring omissions.”

The mistruths and distortions are overwhelming. Mr. Carter disregards Israel’s offer of a Palestinian state at the 2000 Camp David Summit. He ignores the parliamentary election of Hamas — a terrorist organization sworn to destroy Israel. He even blames the Middle East crisis on myths like Jewish control of the government and media.

Professor Kenneth Stein, who resigned last week from his post at The Carter Center over the book, listed two "egregious and inexcusable errors" and several other inaccuracies in Carter's Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.

"History gives no refunds, no do overs," Stein said in his class on the Arab-Israeli conflict, where he presented his criticisms of the Carter book. "You have to take what is and build on it. You can't bend the [facts] to suit a need."

In his book, Carter writes that the resolution says, "Israel must withdraw from occupied territories" it acquired by force during the Six-Day War in 1967 between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. But the word "must" never appears in the actual U.N. resolution text. Stein argued that each word in the resolution was carefully chosen and by inserting the word "must," Carter changed the implications of this key resolution.

Stein said Carter makes a second "inexcusable" error in describing the impact of the 1978 Camp David Accords, which details how Egypt and Israel would normalize relations.

Carter writes that the accords called for "the dismantling of [Israeli] settlements on Egyptian land." But the accords never actually refer to the settlements. In fact, the Israeli leader at the time, Menachem Begin, was so opposed to discussing the issue that he wouldn't have signed any document mentioning them, Stein said.

Stein's third objection to Carter's book is that the former president de-emphasizes the importance of U.N. Resolution 242, he said.

This resolution called for the "territorial integrity, political sovereignty and independence of all states in the region." By emphasizing subsequent resolutions over 242, Stein said, Carter suggests that a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict could be imposed on the states by an outside party. That would change the central premise of all Arab-Israeli negotiations, Stein said.

"As soon as [Carter] put the idea out there, he made it an issue of debate," Stein said.

Carter has consistently defended his book's accuracy against Stein and other critics.

Besides his major concerns, Stein pointed out Carter's use of inaccurate dates. For example, Carter said he met with Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad in Switzerland in June 1977 when he actually met Assad in May. Additionally, Stein said Carter mistakenly wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir resigned in June 1974 when, in fact, she resigned a month earlier.

Stein also took issue with Carter's account of the now-infamous Egyptian Cement Scandal. Carter wrote that "authorities" intercepted humanitarian aid in 2004 and sold it for profit, but he did not specify that it was the Palestinian authorities who intercepted the aid. This could lead readers to believe the Israeli authorities seized the aid, Stein said. "If he intentionally didn't put 'Israelis' in there, then that's an error of commission, not omission," Stein said.

Finally, the professor contested Carter's description of the West Bank wall that the Israeli government constructed to prevent terrorist attacks. In his book, Carter says the wall "separates Palestinians from other Palestinians." But Stein said the wall separates Israelis from Palestinians in all but a few sections. Any comparison to apartheid - in which the South African government forced blacks to live in disparate "homelands" scattered throughout the country - is unfair, Stein said.

"[A book can] shape outlooks and cause sides to feel attacked or emboldened," he said. "Rather than shedding light, this [book] sheds heat. That's the essence of it."

About Me

American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.